


Death Takes a Holiday

by lasergirl



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Sayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[as my whimsey takes me](http://lasergirl.livejournal.com/tag/as%20my%20whimsey%20takes%20me), [crackfic](http://lasergirl.livejournal.com/tag/crackfic), [fic](http://lasergirl.livejournal.com/tag/fic)  
  
---|---  
  
_**FIC: Death Takes a Holiday 1/?**_  
I TOTALLY discovered the plot while my brain bubbled and seethed at work today. That done, I have accordingly re-written the start of my Wimsey AU crackfic.

Because really... do I write an other kind of fic?

**Death Takes A Holiday**  
A Lord Peter Wimsey AU

**

"Your cousin, my Lord, is in prison," Bunter presented the morning paper and breakfast. Peter sighed and read the headlines.

"Again?"

"Rather the same sort of charges, I'm afraid. But after this Pym's affair, it seems more complicated than that." Bunter swept open the curtains to let in the grey morning light. "It seems the last person who saw him saw him on the arm of-"

"Dian de Momerie!" Peter said rather sharply. "No wonder. I had thought when Milligan copped to the trafficking, he'd have been free to go."

"There is the minor matter of a quantity of cocaine found on his person."

Peter read on. In the excitement of chasing down the cocaine dealers that had been supplying the de Momerie crowd, and in solving the matter of Victor Dean's unfortunate demise, the fate of his cousin he had assumed would have been taken care of. It was not, he discovered, as simple as all that.

"I see what you mean," Peter frowned, "It says here he was picked up at dawn, walkin' on foot, in fancy dress. Presumably coming from the spot where he'd murdered Dian - even though we know without a shadow of a doubt it was Milligan. Poor bastard."

"Mr. Bredon does seem to have a talent for finding trouble," Bunter agreed. He laid Peter's dressing gown across the foot of the bed and retreated to the doorway.

"Still, he is my cousin, even if he ain't quite of the proper pedigree," Peter mused over his toast. He chewed thoughtfully, devouring the newspaper article until a faint gleam shone in his eyes. "I fancy he may need a friendly ear before all this business is through."

"Will there be anything else, my Lord?"

"Bail, Bunter, ring Parker and make the necessary arrangements."

"Very good, my Lord."

**

Peter entered through the back of the police station to avoid the loitering newsmen out front. Inspector Parker met him as he was sweeping his hat off his sleek head.

"I've done what I can for the blighter," he said, shaking his head. "But he seems to need more attention than I can give him... without appearaing suspicious, I mean. He was caught practically red-handed."

"What d'ye mean, 'practically?'" Peter said, astonished. "I'd have thought those charges meant he'd been found with the beastly stuff up his nose."

"Mentioning that here might jeopardize bailing him out," Parker scowled. "We've a girl who said she got a packets direct from him, but none of the witnesses can recall. We've been keeping him here to dry out a little before you take him home."

They descended the stone steps that led to the gaol corridor, and immediately Peter felt a chill creep down his spine. Their footsteps echoed against the heavy stone walls. He laughed nervously.

"Can almost hear the water drippin', what?" The stonework was dry, but there was a distinct flavour of a haunted house about the gaol. Parker discreetly rolled his eyes.

"He's lucky to have you."

They rounded the last blind corner and there it was: dimly lit, hardly a resting place for a born criminal, let alone the shadily-illegitimate cousin of a Lord. Indeed, Bredon was the picture of misery: he was huddled on his cot, leaning against the wall, hands clasped tightly over his knees so that the skin over his knuckles was bone-white. The once-grand Harlequin's costume hung bedraggled and mud-spotted around his thin frame. He looked up as the two men approached.

"What ho, cousin," Lord Peter said breezily. They might have been meeting on a cricket pitch and not a gaol cell for all the cheer. Bredon gave a wan smile.

There wasn't, strictly speaking, a mirrorlike resemblence between the two of them. In the evening's gloom, they would have seemed alike as two peas. But in the harsh light of day the truth came out. Peter was older, sleeker and more civilized. The unfortunate Bredon was worn thin by drink and cocaine and appeared sharper around the edges, like a young stray cat. But the family resemblence was there whether the two of them wished it or not, and Lord Peter had been happily excusing away the similarities and fiscal inconveniences for years.

"So you've come to give me another lecture then, have you?" Bredon said glumly. "Always the errand-boy for the Dowager Duchess, eh?"

Peter tsked his cousin sharply, "I fancy sayin' all that rot about drink and drugs bein' poor for the constitution would be a waste of breath," he said. "But it's a far better lecture than the one I could be givin' you about the mortal sin of killin' a defenseless girl." He waved Bredon's cry of irritation away with one hand. "No, I know you didn't do it, old boy, and I have a better idea than all that, and it doesn't entail you sitting here for weeks while they sort out a sentence for you."

"Oh, what's that?" Bredon unfolded himself from the hard cot and stalked the measly length of the cell.

"I've been invited to go to Chuffnell Hall by a friend of dear old Mary's," Peter replied brightly. At his elbow, Inspector Parker coughed to remind the two gentlemen of his prescence. "And of Parker's as well, of course," Peter went on without hesitation. "Country life and the fresh spring air will be good for you. Should get you away from all these Bright Young Things and get you sorted out/"

Bredon scowled, "You sound like an advert for that blasted Nutrax. Of course it won't be good for me. I hate the countryside."

"I overheard you once sayin' how much you'd love to drive my car," smiled Peter benevolently.

**

The drive up to Chuffnell wound through hedgerows and copses teeming with wildlife and birdsong, but the passengers in the powerful roadster paid little attention. They had to shout to be heard over the roar of the cylinders, and the exhilirating rush of wind.

"You're an old hand at the stick," Lord Peter cried, "I didn't think there'd be much racin' to be done in London."

"Oh, there isn't," Bredon called back to him. A high flush burned on his cheeks and his pale hair flew in the wind. "After my last crack-up I thought I'd give up driving for a while. But this is superlative!"

Peter hung tight to the door-handle as they swept around another hairpin curve and felt thankful they hadn't left on a full stomach.

(Okay, for those of you playing along at home, the plot's from _Murder Must Advertise_ which is my total favourite book, only I'm pretending that Peter's alter-ego Death Bredon is a real person. Uhm, yes. Who was having an affair with Dian de Momerie, the cokehead who got killed by Milligan because she 'knew too much.' And he's DISTRAUGHT. And then there's a crossover with _Stiff Upper Lips, Gosford Park, Jeeves and Wooster_ and pretty much anything else you'd care to name.)

BWEE!!!

I am pleading innocent, mostly. I have SO MUCH reading to do!!!


	2. Chapter 2

"And where had your charming cousin gotten off to?" Mrs. Spencer-Gregson, positively dripping in beads, insinuated herself into the armchair beside Lord Peter.

"Whither away?" He balanced his glass daintily on the arm of his chair and procured a gold cigarette-case. At the offering, Mrs. Spencer-Gregson shook her head. "You don't mind if I partake?"

"Heavens, no," Mrs. S-G waved a hand bedecked in a rather oversized square-cut garnet. "I wouldn't have thought him the solitary type. Perhaps he found it a trifle queer to share the evening with you. Remarkable likeness."

"But for the years, we could be twins," Peter agreed. "A curious similarity and one I have often marvelled over."

A sleek, dark-haired man wafted across the room and drew Lord Peter's gaze without a twitch.

"I am sorry to interrupt, my Lord, but I have been asked by Mr. Wooster to inform you that Mr. Bredon appears to have taken ill and was asking after you."

"Has he? Did he say what was the matter?"

"He neglected to say, my Lord."

Peter turned to Mr.s S-G with a smile. "You will forgive me, won't you? Duty, alas, calls."

**

There was a gawky, slack-faced young man pacing the hallway fretfully when Peter came to Bredon's room. He recognized the man from dinner - Mrs. Spencer-Gregson's nephew, as Lord Petere recalled. An idle fellow, but well-intentioned.

"I say, you do look like him! The very spitting image!" The man stopped in his tracks and gaped a little. Peter smiled.

"Actually, it is he who looks like me," he said brightly. "I am older by several years. I'm afraid we haven't properly met. Lord Peter Wimsey." He offered a handshake.

"What ho!" said the young man. "I'm Bertie. Wooster. Erm, I went up with Chuffy, don't you know. That is to say, I suppose he's Lord Chuffnell now. Never call him that."

"I am very pleased to meet you," Peter said graciously. Wooster couldn't have been out of his twenties and still had all the ungainliness of a day-old colt. "But what of my cousin Bredon? I hear he was taken ill."

"Rummy thing it was, too," Wooster marvelled. "We were at a game of billiards when he went all white and had to sit out. I had a rather tricky shot - one of those banked jobbies you see the sharp fellows playing at clubs. Made it rather handily, too. Then I looked, and he'd dashed. My man Jeeves tracked the blighter down, and here I am."

"We was drinking, I suppose?" Peter asked darkly, suspecting the worst.

"We all were. Not more than usual."

"You didn't see him taking anything else?"

The Wooster shook his head and Peter saw from his expression he had no suspicions beyond a friend taken ill. Best not to disturb him with more sober thoughts.

"Very well," Peter knocked on the door and tried the latch. It opened easily. "Thanks awfully."

"Pip pip!" Said Wooster as Peter shut the door behind him.

The room was dimly-lit by a lamp burning near the window, and the shadows it threw cast a weird tone about the room. There was a figure on the bed, still in evening clothes.

"Go away!" Came a thin voice from the bed.

"Sorry, old thing, I heard you were poorly."

Bredon groaned. "I wish I were dead. Why did you drag me off to this awful place? It's done nothing but rain since we arrived."

"The joys of the English climate, a nation of umbrellas and bowler hats." Peter scrutinized his cousin. His face was pasty white, with dark circles under his eyes. If he hadn't known better he might have suspected the young man was merely suffering from a surfeit of drink. "Can I get you anythin'?"

"I wish you hadn't said all those beastly things about me," Bredon sulked. He raised himself up on one elbow. "That I was a dope-peddler and a rake and a murderer - and you know very well all that isn't true!"

"Of course it ain't," Peter said breezily. "Can't have the family name disgraced and all that."

"Very well, your family. The Duke's family. Good old Denver's reputation couldn't absorb another scandal, eh, Wimsey? Nor the Dowager Duchess?"

"Now see here, you ungrateful wretch!" Peter cried plaintively. "My mother likes you. Count yourself in her good graces that she gave you an allowance when your mother died or you'd be holdin' down a rotten job somewhere instead of this flittin' about."

Bredon laughed unpleasantly in the back of his throat. "Not cut out for the working world, are we? You with your bad nerves and that whatsisname looking after you... I may be an opium-eater, My Lord, but I'm not trying to hide from anything."

Peter frowned and thought it was unlikely of Bredon to admit to either of those two fact.s He had his susicions about the former and knew the latter to be entirely false. But he said nothing, merely steepled his fingers and looked lost in thought.


End file.
